This week on WDD’s HotSpot, brought to you by Wireless Design and Development, an autonomous quadcopter that is powered by an off-the-shelf smartphone; a new stylus that can move content from one screen to another; connecting the world via the Internet; and a field-portable device for common kidney tests.

The Vienna University of Technology has developed an autonomous quadcopter that is powered by an off-the-shelf smartphone. The camera of the smartphone provides the visual data, and its processor acts at the control center. Using a smartphone app, the team coded the quadcopter’s intelligence, which allows it to navigate small rooms. They also added a micro controller that adjusts the rotor speed so the quadcopter can steadily fly.

Chinese start-up, Tagtal, has designed a new stylus that can move content from one screen to another. The tStylus is powered by an on-screen port, and is a capacitive touch-sensor that easily moves images, video, and other media from screen to screen, using special software that needs to be running on the receiving device.

Mark Zukerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, has announced the launch of internet.org, which is a global partnership with the goal of making internet access available to the next 5 billion people. The goal of Internet.org is to make internet access available to the two thirds of the world who are not yet connected, and to bring the same opportunities to everyone that the connected third of the world has today.

UCLA researchers have created a field-portable device for common kidney tests that attaches to a smartphone and provides instant results. The smartphone-based device determines the level of albumin in a patient’s urine, which is a protein in the blood and is a sign of danger when found in urine, and transmits the test results to a database or health care provider via a the smartphone.